We absolutely love these things. This is a Technicolor lithograph with a cellophane or acetate overlay, which if you lift—and of course anyone would—reveals the same figure undressed on the page beneath. As we’ve mentioned before, we think—but cannot be sure—that these originated with the French nudie magazine Paris-Hollywood, and we’ve shown you some examples from that publication. The U.S. innovation was adding a Technicolor printing process that made the final product more vivid than the French versions. As you see below, the shot was also used for a standard Technicolor pin-up without the overlay. The print is titled “Alluring,” from around 1955, and as usual we can’t identify the model. Many of these items featured centerfolds and celebrities, but others used more obscure subjects. See more U.S. Technicolor overlay examples here, here, and here, and check out a couple of French ones here and here.
1919—Luxemburg and Liebknecht Are Killed
Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, two of the most prominent socialists in Germany, are tortured and murdered by the Freikorps. Freikorps was a term applied to various paramilitary organizations that sprang up around Germany as soldiers returned in defeat from World War I. Members of these groups would later become prominent members of the SS.